Thomas Hart Benton, Steel from America Today, 1930
1,928 words
French translation here, German translation here, Spanish translation here
White Nationalists want political power. We want to gain it, and keep it, and use it to turn our race from the path to extinction back to the path to the stars.
We have truth and right on our side, and we’re going to win.
But let’s not lose sight of where we are today. White Nationalists are a tiny, powerless, despised minority. We are poorly-organized, poorly-funded, and poorly-led. Aside from the internet, we have no way of getting our message to the masses. The political system is rigged against us. The reigning moral consensus holds racism to be the ultimate evil.
We are, moreover, a magnet for dysfunctional types: drunks, cranks, hobbyists, depressives, pathological liars, histrionic narcissists, grandiose maniacs, and outright psychotics. Until we learn to identify and avoid such people, the best we can hope for is two steps forward, one step back. All too often, it is two or three steps back.
A movement that combines lofty idealism with such real-world impotence and squalor is bound to breed a tendency toward wishful thinking and grandiose fantasies. Who could blame us for wanting an alternative to this reality?
What is the difference between healthy idealism and mere fantasy? The healthy idealist does not merely have a sense of where he is going, he also bears in mind where he is now, and how he is going to get there from here. The fantasist, by contrast, is so hell-bent on fleeing the squalor of the present that he launches himself into an idealistic fantasy world with no thought to how this fantasy can be achieved.
I want to discuss two kinds of fantasists: radicals and mainstreamers.
Radical Fantasists
The first kind is the easiest to spot. They are ideological purists who believe in articulating and sticking to the truth, no matter how radical and unpalatable it might seem to the mainstream. Purists believe that the social and political changes they desire will be achieved only after the present civilization collapses due to internal weakness and corruption. Until then, they are content to read Julius Evola and Savitri Devi, post comments on the internet, and maybe stockpile weapons, ammunition, and dried banana chips.
I think the purists are 95% correct. I agree that we need to speak the truth, stand our ground, and try to move the rest of the world in our direction. I believe that we will never be saved within the present social and political system. I believe that we will only get what we want when this system is destroyed. I agree with their implicit assumption that we will never be strong enough to destroy the system ourselves. I especially agree with the reading list.
But I don’t believe in just waiting for history to do our work for us. We can also do something in the meantime. We can create real world communities. We can create networks and organizations. We can publish books and edit journals. We can mentor young people. We can convert people to our way of thinking.
We can do more than prepare to survive a collapse. We can already have a new community—the seeds of a new order—in place when the collapse comes. And who knows, we may even be able to lend our shoulders to the wheel of time, to speed up the process of dissolution and renewal. That which is falling should not just be cheered on. It should also be pushed.
Mainstream Fantasists
The second type of fantasist is harder to spot, because he pretends to be a hard-bitten political realist, a shrewd wheeler-dealer, a pragmatic activist who scorns the radical fantasists as do nothings.
But the mainstream fantasists are often more detached from reality than the radicals. Consider the following mainstream fantasist behaviors.
(1) Election Enthusiasm. Mainstream fantasists followed the recent elections with extreme interest, even though of the hundreds of candidates running for office, only one of them—Jim Russell of New York’s 18th district—was concerned with representing the interests of white Americans (and even he might want to sue me for saying so).
Yes, of course, American politics affects us all. But that does not explain why bona fide White Nationalists are actually rooting for Republicans as if Republicans give a damn about white interests.
What explains that?
It is complex. In some cases I am sure it is just a matter of old habits dying hard. In other cases, it is less a love of Republicans than a hatred of the left.
But the greater part of it is the power of make-believe. I have seen obese couch potatoes pantomiming slam dunks and then feeling like star athletes. I have seen sports enthusiasts who take as much pride in calling a game as the athletes who actually win it. Rooting for the Republicans is the same thing. It is no fun to feel alienated and impotent, so many White Nationalists like to imagine that the Republicans are our team, because when one’s team wins, one experiences a vicarious feeling of efficacy, even though one actually does nothing to contribute to the victory.
Mistaking political commentary for political power is the equivalent of feeling like a rock star by playing air guitar.
But it gets worse.
(2) Supporting System Candidates. Some White Nationalists go much further than giving mere passive support to mainstream politicians. They actually give money and work to politicians who don’t represent us. Indeed, if these politicians knew who we are, they would run away from us.
First it was Patrick Buchanan. Then it was Ron Paul. Now it is Rand Paul and the Tea Party. I personally know White Nationalists who have given thousands of dollars and countless hours of hard work to these candidates, even though there is no way we could influence them.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right here
Again, the question is why?
Sure, the left predictably accused them of racism. But that did not make it so. None of these people represent white interests. They would be furious if you accused them of that.
Some White Nationalists claimed they were prospecting for potential converts. But that did not require donating money and actually working for the candidates.
Others claimed that they simply wanted to make trouble for the establishment. But, again, there were enough genuine paleocons, libertarians, and Tea Partiers out there to do that. White Nationalists did not need to give a dime or lift a finger.
So why did they? Again, I think it offers them the illusion of efficacy in the real world.
But it is a very expensive illusion.
Indeed, I would argue that it is an immoral self-indulgence.
Wide awake White Nationalists are very rare. If you are wide awake, then you need to put all of your money and efforts into awakening others. Libertarians and paleocons can take care of their own. White Nationalists need to take care of our own.
To the White Nationalists who are wasting their time and money supporting system politicians, I ask: “If not you, who?” If you don’t support our cause, then who will? White Nationalism is all about taking our own side. So why are White Nationalists working for the system instead?
The next time anyone reading this is thinking of spending $2,000 to eat rubber chicken in a ballroom with a system political candidate, get in touch with me first. For $2,000, I’ll actually sit down to dinner with you and listen to what you have to say. I’ll make sure your money will go directly to promoting White Nationalism. I’ll keep you informed about the effects it is having. Hell, I’ll even pick up the tab.
(3) Self-Censorship. The system wants nothing more than to shut us up. But some White Nationalists actually fantasize that shutting up is the path to victory. They tell us that we have to censor ourselves of every idea that “won’t play in Peoria.” We have to distance ourselves from the radicals and extremists, the people with strange sounding, easily parodied ideas.
Instead, we have to “meet people where they are right now.” We have to appeal to their existing attitudes and interests. Politics, after all, is the art of the possible. We have to work within the existing parameters and incrementally move people in the right direction.
It sounds so reasonable, so concrete and well-grounded. But it is actually abstract fantasy talk. The truth is, there is no political path that leads from Peoria to the White Republic. Between them stands a vast moral chasm that mere politics cannot bridge.
The problem is that the people in Peoria want the system that is poisoning their children’s minds with self-hate and minority worship, flooding our nation with the detritus of the Third World, and setting our race on the road to extinction. They want that world—or they want the approval of their friends and neighbors and Baptist Sunday School teachers and Oprah more than they want to oppose the forces promoting our extinction.
The Tea Partiers want that world too, they just want to make sure that the brown hordes inherit a country with low taxes, limited government, and sound money—as if they’d have any use for them. The Tea Partiers will do nothing explicitly pro-white because they don’t care enough about racial preservation to take the risk. They aren’t racists just because the Rachel Maddows of the world say they are.
Politics always appeals to the existing value system. No White Nationalist politics is possible today, because the dominant value system is anti-racist. Anti-racism really is the only thing sacred in this country today. Unless we change that value system, any political progress we make will be at enormous cost and probably will be easily erased. Yes, one can swim against the current, but it is tiring, and one need only relax a second to see all one’s gains swept away.
The conclusion: We need a metapolitical movement to create the context in which political change is possible, and creating that context requires (1) changing people’s values and (2) expanding their conceptions of what is really possible.
It can be done. But we have to say things that people will think are immoral or impractical, and then persuade them to change their minds. If we are going to save our race, we have to risk offending people.
Politics as usual is the path to perdition: to shutting up, blending in, not making waves, and going with the flow that is leading our people down to the sunless sea of extinction.
(4) Self-Co-option. The system tries to co-opt and neutralize all political dissent. But some White Nationalists fantasize that co-opting ourselves is the path to victory.
I am all for creating front groups and publications controlled by bona fide White Nationalists that intersect with the outer edge of the mainstream. These fronts allow us to recruit and radicalize people, moving them in the right direction. We need a whole spectrum of organizations and messages spanning the gap between the mainstream and the advocates of a white ethnostate.
But no purpose is served by persuading White Nationalists to move toward the mainstream: to shut up, blend in, and devote our scarce money and time to promoting the success of marginally better system politicians. How, exactly, does this get us closer to the White Republic? Co-opting ourselves is not the path to power but to oblivion.
Again, the libertarians, paleocons, and Republicans can take care of themselves. We are a tiny, powerless, impoverished minority. If we do not devote all our resources to promoting our message, then who will?
50 comments
Greg Johnson’s insights into Tim Wise would be much appreciated. I despise Tim Wise, but I wish him an even wider platform and louder megaphone. Any Whites who agree to surrender under his terms would have surrendered anyway to anyone who tells them they are evil for having White parents. They are already traitors, and the sooner they follow Tim Wise, the better, for they our outted as fools all the sooner, thanks to him.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2010/11/an_open_letter_2.php
I want to hear them all admit that “Making White Babies is a Hate Crime against Human Dignity.”
Tim Wise helps the cause of WN, especially because he is so immediately unlikable, as are most aggressive anti-White Jews. Our worst enemies are likable anti-Whites- the soft, squishy, well-spoken, feminized Christian clergymen, etc. As a proud, but suffering, White Gentile Christian, I despise them even more than Tim Wise.
http://wvwnews.net/printer.php?id=9470
EAU: Stop Tim Wise From Speaking at Sewanee, TN
Posted on: 2010-11-07 13:05:45
Send correspondence to: [email protected],[email protected],
[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]
To whom it may concern;
It is our understanding on the 9th of November, Sewanee will host Mr. Tim Wise to speak to your students regarding “racism.”
Please be advised that Mr. Wise is well known for his blatant bigotry against persons of European extraction. In spite of his credentials, denials (and ethnicity) Mr. Wise is not an ‘anti racist.’ Mr. Wise is an anti-white activist, but he disguises it in order to further what amounts to a Marxist based degeneration of European Americans in favor of a multicultural socialist Utopia; an activity we understand that also happens to pay quite well.
His caustic and mean spirited diatribes are well known and normally follow course with a screed he penned (here) regarding the recent Republican election victory and white American voters:
“We just have to be patient.
And wait for your hearts to stop beating.
And stop they will.
And for some of you, real damned soon truth be told.”
While Mr. Wise has since claimed that he is only referring to what he calls the “white right”, the fact of the matter is he is likely including all of our mothers, fathers, sons and daughters in his hateful declarations whose view points diverge from his own. Moreover, following Mr. Wise’s sick logic it should also be acceptable to wish the hearts of those on the “non-white left” to stop beating as well.
In order to maintain the integrity of the University of the South’s student body and your reputation, we strongly and publicly recommend that you cancel Mr. Wise’s appearance.
sincerely;
Mr. Drago Rendl
Mr Frank Roman
Mr John Young
Board of Directors, European Americans United
Tim Wise compliments Sewanee students for not asking “challenging questions”
Sewanee costs White parents $46,000 per year. (The Diversity all get free ride scholarships in effort to increase Sewanee’s much needed Diversity.)
For that $46,000 x four years, White parents can be assured that their White children are learning to:
1. Never ask a challenging question when encountering a University sponsored anti White hatemonger on campus with a question such as, “What faith do you have in the blacks such that if we rid society of White privilege and social inequality by lowering ourselves down to their level that they will not keep pulling us down even further?”
2. Never even think to challenge anti White hatred, because it is now the normal, accepted, and expected mainstream attitude on college campuses and in any corporation or institution that hosts Diversity speakers and hires Officers of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.
“As it turns out, about 400 people came to my talk at Sewanee (also known as the University of the South) — an incredibly conservative campus — and none caused trouble or even asked a challenging question.
http://www.timwise.org/2010/11/talking-loud-and-saying-nothing/
In that case, Sewanee should no longer be allowed the proud reputation as “conservative.” It now should be called ” extremely liberal and dangerously radical.”
Maybe the $46,000 is money well spent. White college students will graduate from Sewanee knowing how to keep their mouths shut and will therefore not be targeted for career oppression and marginalization by the Diversity Enforcers and the new, rising Multicultural Elite who embrace their own unearned Diversity Privilege while punishing high achieving and meritorious Whites.
Students who speak up and ask the “challenging questions” will be targeted as “potentially dangerous extremists who need watching, and certainly are still holding onto unacknowledged and outdated biases, and possibly are real racists who retain a shameful nostalgia for the ‘innocence and purity’ of Jim Crow segregation.”
“If we are going to save our race, we have to risk offending people.”
Try this for openers: “Do you think Jews should be allowed to promote the preservation of the Jewish race by securing the borders of Israel and encouraging Jews to only marry each other and make 100% Jewish babies?”
If answer is yes, then the next obvious thing to do is ask same question from a WN perspective. Offend them with their own anti-racist, anti-Whiteness.
We can also do something in the meantime. We can create real world communities. We can create networks and organizations. We can publish books and edit journals. We can mentor young people. We can convert people to our way of thinking.
Are there any existing organizations you recommend? A3p? CCC? Any others?
I know the leaders of the A3P and the CofCC. The A3P is more in line with my thinking, but the CofCC, like American Renaissance, provides opportunities to meet people who are just moving out of the mainstream. Some of these people should be cultivated and radicalized.
Please don’t leave out The American Nationalist Union, run by Don Wassall. I put ANU in the same category as A3P and CofCC, and I am a faithful contributor and supporter of The Nationalist Times.
Mr. Johnson, congratulations, Counter-currents.com and North American New Right are excellent.
Greg,
“I personally know White Nationalists who have given thousands of dollars and countless hours of hard work to these candidates, even though there is no way we could influence them.
Again, the question is why?”
I wrote something resembling an answer to this question in a recent comment of mine at MR:
By the way, is it possible for you to add a preview button for those of us writing comments?
I’ll forward your request to the webmaster.
I understand your reasoning, but my answer is: Republicans can take care of their own. WN support to Republicans is like a drop in the ocean. The same amount of support in the WN community is like a life-giving rainstorm in a drought.
Hello Greg,
Though you don’t know me and have never met me, I felt like you were speaking to me in this essay, so I feel a need to explain why some present day White Nationalists have contributed financially to System candidates. The road to racial consciousness and White Nationalism was not a direct one for me. For the better part of my life I was concerned with little beyond myself: first my schooling and then my career. The Iraq war was the jolt that awoke me. Even to someone like me who paid only cursory attention to the news, the “threat” from Iraqi WMDs seemed beyond preposterous. It started me thinking and reading. It wasn’t long before I came upon the neocons. Even more shocking for me was the media’s complicity and what that implied for the world we inhabit–a world of illusions and false beliefs created with a deliberate intent to deceive and mold men’s minds regardless of the facts. The ethnic and racial dimension to the neocon’s and media boss’ agenda only became clear to me much later.
It also made me wonder–if a war can be launched on the flimsiest of pretenses–what’s to say it hasn’t been done before? What and who were behind America’s participation in WWI and WW2? Have we had any national interests in jeopardy during those wars? I deliberately sought what the losers of both wars had to say about their motivations and the causes. It was eye opening!
At any rate, Kucinich and Ron Paul both appeared heroic because of their opposition to the war and the fact that they were willing to speak frankly about the neocons and against the war. I was not much interested in or even aware of their other platforms. Nothing seemed as important to me as ending an unnecessary war. So, what could I do? I was so worried and angry about the lies and hypocrisy and the disasters that were awaiting us if we continued as we were. I can’t write. I can’t organize. I can’t participate in political demonstrations. I contributed money! To the only candidates I thought could change things. That was all I could do and that’s what I did. My contribution was at the federal limit for at least one of them.
It was only as I delved deeper that my awareness of the racial underpinnings to our country’s ills grew. William Pierce’s essays, so clearly articulated, well reasoned and impassioned provided the final epiphany and the push I needed. I will never again donate to these useful idiots who serve as the System’s safety valves. Never.
I will try to do my part in supporting WNs, but you do yours too: keep writing! You are making a difference. You are a fantastic writer. Clear and well-reasoned, you remind me of a mild-mannered William Pierce. You are laying the ideological foundations for a better world.
Wishing you all the best!
Thanks for your kind and encouraging words.
Your ideological journey is not unusual.
What would be hard to fathom is if, knowing what you know now, you were still contributing to system politicians. So my criticisms really are not directed at you.
Thanks for this article. It reminds me very strongly the dispute that moved the blogger who writes under the penname of Trainspotter to quit posting comments at Occidental Dissent. (For those unfamiliar with this dispute I gathered most of Trainspotter’s substantial comments here.)
As to the “drunks, cranks, hobbyists, depressives, pathological liars, histrionic narcissists, grandiose maniacs, and outright psychotics” I wouldn’t worry too much. Every truly radical movement starts with lots of eccentrics and weirdos. The trick, as Trainspotter demonstrates in 30,000 words, is that every embryonic movement eventually reaches a critical mass.
To me white nationalism is like a tiny gaseous sphere already leaving the cradle of the nebulae. It’s accumulating more and more mass that is slowly forming a center of higher density to form a protostar. When enough pressure in the interior rises, it will increase the density and temperature until the gas turns to plasma. When nuclear fusion is initiated at the core, a new star will be born in Western history…
To be born as a distinct solar system, the present tiny gaseous sphere needs additional mass. And yes: it’s infuriating that “nationalists” — actually: people still trapped in another gravitational field— are giving their money to the old system. It’s like those Americans who believed that when Reagan got elected they won, when in fact they lost and the anti-white establishment won again.
Yes, I admire Trainspotter. Thanks for gathering his best comments together.
This essay is part of a series of essays in which I am formulating the lessons learned in the last year of internet dust-ups, beginning with Alex Linder.
Did I really say “histrionic narcissists”? I should have said “drama queens.”
PS: Take a look at Steve Ryker’s recent thoughtful comment on your review of Toward the White Republic. https://counter-currents.com/2010/10/toward-the-white-republic-review/#comment-2152
Thanks. I didn’t know but now I’ve responded to Steve.
If possible, could you ask the C-C webmaster to add email follow-up notice options so that both Steve and I (or another commenter) know when his comment has been answered?
“drunks, cranks, hobbyists, depressives, pathological liars, histrionic narcissists, grandiose maniacs, and outright psychotics”……ahh, family.
Excellent article.
Mark
Another incisive piece by Dr. Johnson. Well played.
I am reminded of the difficulties WN’s share in terms of overall acceptance by a couple of personal anecdotes.
At different times in my life two significant females have balked, i.e. gave me grief, over my affiliations with EAU. More specifically they were fearful of my putting myself “out there” via pod casts which would cause undue attention from the “authorities” and possibly alienate me from good friends.
In both instances I quickly posited to them that their fears would in all likelihood vanish like smoke in a tornado if I was, say, paid a thousand dollars per podcast. From that point on the subject was pretty much moot.
Sad but true. Money is the balm of countless woes. Moreover, in my mind it explains how much work is on front of us in terms of acceptance.
Thanks for your kind words.
I think a lot of WNs are intimidated by imagining a scene in which a hysterical liberal or Jew denounces them publicly for their perfidy. Outside a college campus, however, that is hardly likely.
The likelier scenario is that a whispering campaign causes certain people to mysteriously stop returning phone calls. One can suspect, but one will never really KNOW what is going on.
Now, such chickenshittery can definitely have a devastating effect on one’s life, but can you really fear it? Can you respect yourself if you allow it to rule you? Doesn’t it make you just want to say “fuck ’em,” level your horns, and charge?
A pervasive problem is the lack of a sense of direction and of a sense of direction that is charged with meaning—a theme to which I have returned again and again in my writing. Many seem to deem it sufficient to ‘tell the truth’ / present ‘the facts’ (e.g., the Jews, IQ, immigration), warn about how much worse things will be in the future and lament how much better they were in the past, and dream about the great collapse, as if such a collapse would magically put White Nationalists in charge and thus instantly solve all our problems. As things stand, the great collapse, if and when it comes, would likely put Islam in charge, at least in Europe. (And of course it might never come—the present system could well die with a whimper.) Next, the past was not the idyll it is often portrayed as having been: after all, it led to the present, so it obviously had problems. And, finally, the truth/the facts are useless on their own: most people believe what they want to believe, which is usually what makes them feel good about themselves; when facts are inconvenient, they are ignored, discredited, and / or suppressed. What is missing, and what would make a difference, is a meaningful future-oriented programme: one that shows that our side is for something, rather than just against everything. And when I say for something, I do not mean a return to the 1950s, or the 1930s, or some earlier time, or just a reversal of certain policies, or just the expulsion of certain people; I mean something entirely new, relevant to the 203os, or the 2050s, which affects every aspect of life, inside and out, corporally and spiritually, which is ours, and both futuristic and yet based on archaic values. It does, as Greg argues, begin with thinking differently. But it continues with the translation of that thinking into a dynamic aesthetic, a dynamic praxis, a methodology, a meaningful way of doing things, that inspires ordinary people, gives meaning to their lives, and can be assimilated so that it envelops and affects every aspect of their existence, down to the smallest detail, inside and out.
Put in practical terms: if we reject egalitarianism, we are elitists; if we are elitists, we are for quality over quantity; if we are for quality, we favour sturdy, durable, well-designed, and artistically rendered everyday objects. For the apolitical citizen, this is attractive: something he understands, something he can appreciate, something he can have near, to remind him about the good life, about work well done, about having high standards, about life not being about cutting corners and quick profits, about being, in sum, elitist, inegalitarian… That is what I mean by translating ideas into an aesthetic and a praxis. It begins with abstract concepts and it ends with the most ordinary of household objects; and from there it radiates outwards and upwards again into the heights of abstraction. But the apolitical citizen need not concern himself with that: he will go for the proposition that makes him feel good about life and about himself.
At the moment, all the apolitical citizen sees is that our side offers nothing but, on the one hand, depressing facts, and, on the other, ostracism, prison sentences, unemployment, martyrdom, social embarrassment, and a bleak future taken straight out of the grimmest, darkest, most crushingly depressing apocalyptic science fiction film ever made or imagined. Is it a surprise he prefers the version shown in Star Trek?
Well said.
But it continues with the translation of that thinking into a dynamic aesthetic, a dynamic praxis, a methodology, a meaningful way of doing things, that inspires ordinary people, gives meaning to their lives, and can be assimilated so that it envelops and affects every aspect of their existence, down to the smallest detail, inside and out.
Funny, I hadn’t seen your comment, and made a very similar point above — but the two “methodologies” are entirely different, and I think that difference is instructive. One is aesthetic, and so necessarily vague, which lends itself to the specter of mass appeal. The other is completely analytical, and so useless as a model of mass-inspiration. Back of the one is the belief in, or that the masses, the ordinary, can still be inspired; back of the other is the belief that the ordinary can and should be armed with the ideas needed to combat modernism internally and in society. In fine, I think you are too caught up with culture, with aesthetics — as is evident in a few of your articles; for example, that bizarre encomium of black metal album art last year. Granted that more people appreciate such things than read the commentary at MR or here; but that has value only if it is true that the masses are still an actionable political body. Which they are as far as a watered-down grassroots affair like the Tea Party, and categorically are not at any higher rarefaction of ideology. In other words, it relies on the mystique of numbers, of mass — on the belief that the masses can be aesthetically enfranchised where political means are blocked. And, I think that is specious. What can be done, without any vague appeals to folk-wide enfranchisement, what is being done in a haphazard fashion, now, at the various blogs, is the evolution of White Nationalist discourse — which, if the brightest heads could only focus themselves, would be poised to flower into White Nationalist theory. To be sure, zero mass appeal, but as that is spurious teleology anyhow, it should be no impediment. There’s no mass appeal in any case, and where there’s an approach to it (such as in the “neofolk” scene), it remains indirect, poses no challenge to the horizontal power of the multicultural narrative as enforced by our white zombie brethren. I mean, in the end, those who can be influenced will be, and those who can’t, will never. So we’re already discussing people with psychological tendencies which will fall into one or the other category, aesthetic or analytic. The difference is that art and aesthetics don’t exhaust social phenomena; they reflect and idealize them. Only analysis exhausts the biopolitical significance of social phenomena. Which is why people write at Counter Currents, and don’t paint pictures or make music.
Anyway, sorry for spamming, Greg.
1. From my essay about Black Metal:
And
2. RE: Women. The title of my article was ‘Women are Our Allies’. I wrote nothing about women as WN theorists. My argument was that women are natural allies to WN because they have much to gain from European civilisation and much to lose from its eclipse. For a movement so preoccupied with birthrates and the preservation of the race, it seems rather odd to ignore the half that makes the babies.
3. RE: Aesthetics. A beautiful website attracks regular visitors, an ugly one turns them away. A beautiful girl is ogled, approached, talked to, pursued, dated, shown off; an ugly one is ignored. It’s the reality of sex appeal and its sublimation into aesthetics. Of course, style without substance is short lived, so on its own it’s insufficient; but substance without style doesn’t even get people interested, because they will not even come near or stick around long enough to find out. I am sceptical of approaches that rely on analysis for this reason: humans tend to think with their eyes and act on their hormones. Analysis tends to be the subsequent rationalisation of a prior, instinctive, biological tendency or response. WN has been painted by the Left as an ugly ideology. WN has responded with arguments, logic, and facts, none of which have made any difference, of course, because even those who might be sympathetic to them are put off by the fact that they are considered ugly, unpleasant, and repellent. Therefore, even sympathetic types stay well clear, no matter what WNs say, preferring to remain attractive in the eyes of others.
The Tea Party might be just exposing the “economics schism” among race realists in the USA. I think many of the Tea Party White Nationalists simply won’t give money or effort to those who seem to be advocating for a White welfare state.
I’m not sure what you are talking about. Are there Tea Party White Nationalists? I would like to meet one. Is the concern with “National Socialism”?
I don’t know what qualifies one to be called a “White Nationalist” actually, but I am talking about ex-Objectivists (Ayn Rand variety) and, to a much lesser extent, ex-Libertarians who have become racially aware and would like an all-White (or at least 80%+ White) country but are supporting the Tea Party with money and time (primarily to fight taxes and regulation in the short term).
These types are non-believers and would like a White secular non-welfare state for purely selfish reasons. No hate, no nostalgia for the past, nothing but raw selfishness.
The race issue is the only real distinction between their previous Objectivist or Libertarian views and now.
So, the priorities may be screwy to some, but it is more about optimizing the environment for one’s personal success and enjoyment of life than worrying about the future of the race.
I guess what I am talking about would be “White Individualism” rather than “White Nationalism” !!
Ahh yes, the HBD + Austrian Economics + game (Asian girlfriend optional) set. Got it. Thanks.
I can agree totally with Johnson that we must get our message out to the mainstream and not stray or compromise, which is why I believe the only viable political option is for true nationalist to join the American Third Position today!…..american3p.org
A very good sound essay, Greg, thanks. Thank you too, Chechar, for collating and archiving most of Trainspotter’s incisive comments. Trainspotter is, like Eric Thomson, a White Nationalist treasure trove of important ideas, comments and insight. Not to disparage any of the fine WN writers that we have out there, but he is one of the most incisive and articulate WN commentators that I’ve ever seen. He needs to be authoring essays for the Occidental Observer, or Counter-Currents. Is he still actively blogging anywhere?
I have extended several offers to Trainspotter to write here. He has posted comments. I suspect that he is taking a break from the WN world. And who can blame him? Anybody who has had dealings with “Hunter Wallace” feels the need for a long detox.
All white nationalist activity should be aimed at undermining and discrediting, rather than buttressing, the legitimacy of the current system. The Pierce led National Alliance used this strategy and promoted an explicitly racial and anti-Jewish worldview seemingly with moderate success before his untimely passing. In short it was revolutionary (not conservative) but Pierce was pragmatic and realized many whites are simply beyond reach.
Contrast Pierce’s approach to the the pushers of the mainstream variety of white nationalism. To them, every white person is a potential white nationalist in waiting, and the right amount of buzz words, slogans, conservatism and periodic proclamations that they don’t hate Jews will do the trick. That and feigning interest and excitement in pop culture and national elections will endear us to the “normal” whites and deliver them to our cause.
Our system is forever corrupt and cannot be transformed in any fundamental way that would advance our racial interests. That’s why the giddiness in some white nationalist circles over the recent election results is so comical. While more Republicans and tea party types might serve as a temporary speed bump to the anti-white and militant multicultural program, in the end it marches inexorably onward regardless of the ratio of Republicans to Democrats.
Well said. I completely agree.
Perhaps the thing that disgusts me the most about the bad sort of mainstreamers is that in order to ingratiate themselves with the mainstream, they spend their time disavowing anybody to their right, and not just kooks, but men who are their betters in terms of intellect, honesty, courage, and commitment. In the end, they drive off the people who are loyal to their alleged ideals in exchange for a bunch of tepid people who will all sheer off as soon as they meet even verbal resistance.
http://www.ateney.ru/eng/eng018.htm#c
An interview with leftist jew Tim Wise attacking whites after the election, interviewed by a black anchor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ99MSr4FN0
Might be of interest to people who found this piece as interesting as I did.
My support from a recently invaded land by millions of muslims and amerindians. A country that fought Reconquista and once ruled without shame the other castes. Spain. Saludos desde Europa.
Thanks for collecting all of Trainspotter’s quotes/essays. They are a treasure. I hope he comes back full time. He made mincemeat out of “Hunter Wallace.”
I perceived the TS/HW debate as a draw. TS was right that we can’t win a lasting victory without spreading our ideas and transforming the culture. HW was right that TS’s proposal to spread ideas has limited value without specifics and a plan to make a it reality. TS never provided those specifics, at least not that I saw; he just kept saying we should spread ideas (without saying which ones) or how, other than by using the Internet where we often do little but preach to the choir. This is what I took to be the core of the dispute.
@ “I perceived the TS/HW debate as a draw.”
I respectfully disagree. It was not a draw. Trains checkmated Hunter. Read the whole selection of Trains’ posts linked above and have second thoughts.
RE: Assembling the top talent
uh wrote:
FWIW, this is true in my experience. And Wintermute is a very good example of it.
I followed Wintermute’s posts from about the 2003 – 2005, and he wrote many posts I wish now I would have saved. Unless Wintermute kept those posts and is planning to write a book, his comments from that long ago are probably lost forever, just as “uh” said. And trust me, from what I remember, those were comments worth keeping with penetrating insight; it just didn’t occur to me at the time to save them, and now they’re gone.
In general, I don’t think the high powered White Nationalist intellectuals in this movement appreciate how insights that are obvious to them are not obvious to everyone else.
Most of you have a real talent not just for deep analysis but also for framing issues in ways that are of value not just to your peers, but also to the general WN reader.
In the short time I have been following Wandrin’s posts, for example, he has said many things that have influenced my thinking on a number of topics and given me insight into various issues that I did not have prior to reading his remarks. That makes me wonder what else Wandrin has said that I have missed. I can use whatever Wandrin writes that I happen to see, but if it’s not all in one place well then I can’t use all of it, just bits and pieces.
And here is another example. There was a thread on roissy’s web site several weeks back that dealt with an HBD topic. Well, Svigor showed up on that particular discussion and gave the anti-racists a brutal thrashing. It was highly entertaining to watch and one of the most brutal thrashings I have ever seen in a comments war anywhere. I actually saved Svigor’s comments so that I can use them myself in the future to rebut anti-racist sophistry.
One of Svigor’s comments in particular made a strong impression; he said something to the effect of — and I’m paraphrasing crudely here but this is the gist — that “being a White Nationalist means standing on your own two feet and saying this is what God/Nature made me, and I’m going to embrace all aspects of who I am, not just the parts that society tells me to embrace.” For whatever reason, that particular formulation made a strong impression on me, and I plan to use it myself going forward with the hope that it will have equally strong impression on the White people in my circle of influence.
I understand that CC hopes to become the WN equivalent of the Partisan Review and that you really don’t care about reaching a mass audience. That’s understandable. I also understand that your goal isn’t to craft arguments or talking points to use against the anti-racists. There is an entire world of White people out there who will never be able to appreciate the level of analysis one finds here or in a place like Majority Rights.
On the other hand though, I do think that a blogging collective of top WN talent would be of interest and value to the generally well educated WN reader. Lawyers, business people, and other professionals with WN sympathies would all benefit from such a collective. These are likely to be people with influence in their communities and generally on the right side of the bell curve, just not the extreme right side like the people who write here and at Majority Rights.
Such a collective would certainly be of interest to me despite the fact I will never be able to produce the level of analysis one finds here or on Majority Rights — and I’m not embarrassed to admit it either. The Partisan Review probably had readers who were able to benefit from the articles without being qualified to write one.
I do firmly believe that WN intellectuals need to get their best analysis out of the comments on various Web sites and into an organized format that will be accessible for decades to come. Decentralization has its merits but so does centralization. In this case, centralization might be the way to go.
– LEW
LEW,
We can’t cover everything here, and I do want to remain one step removed from commentary on the daily news cycle. But I would be glad to publish opinion pieces, articles, and short blog posts from some of the writers under discussion. Matt Parrott’s posts are a good example of what I would like to publish in the future. Many of our pieces are collections of talking points and refutations of the reigning sophistries, and I would like to publish more of those. I want to build a mighty arsenal of intellectual ammunition here.
Greg, that’s great. Looking forward to it. I disagree somewhat with the commenter down the page who said publishing these writers would have little political value. That’s true only in the near term. There could be major impact long term because of the way ideas filter down and diffuse. An intellectual project can have multiple tiers if you will. One tier could be the intellectuals doing the most fundamental foundation work, the next tier could be what I would call public intellectuals. This group is key IMO because most public intellectuals can work on both sides; they have the ability to do foundation work when necessary, but can also write effectively for informed audiences that are non-peers. The next tier would be writers at the level of pundits and polemicists who write for a mass audience using distilled versions of the foundation work produced by the upper tiers. An sample of this pattern would be something like this: Trotsky influences James Burnham, Burnham rejects Trotsky and develops his concept of the managerial state; James Burnham influences Sam Francis; Francis weds Burnham’s work the concept of Middle American Radicals; Francis in turn then influences a slew of people around the CCofC and AmRen. That’s just an example of how there could be political impact eventually. I realize the nanr wants a very different outcome from what Francis produced. It’s also an example of an intellectual ripple on the political side; the same pattern holds with cultural work as well though.
I find it encouraging to read many of the comments here. I’ve recently been thinking about what might be called “ground level Gramscianism.” I might be reading things into the comments here, but I think that several commentators have effectively said that they want a “think tank” and an “irrigation system.” They want the better nationalist writers around to set the agenda, tone, and contents of nationalist discourse. They want the ideas of these writers to be synthesised and popularised. I think this metapolitical activity would be very worthwhile.
Since the most recent comments appear at the top of this commentariat section, let me repost, in its barest format, the (now way below) link that collects Trainspotter’s critique of nationalists “going mainstream”:
http://caesartort.blogspot.com/2010/07/join-us.html
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